Resilience
Resilience refers to the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to a pre-crisis status quickly. It is the capacity to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Resilience is not about avoiding stress, but rather about adapting to and recovering from it. It involves mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. Factors contributing to resilience include the ways individuals view and engage with the world, the availability and quality of social resources, and specific coping strategies. Resilience can be cultivated and practiced, and it is about coming out of a stressful situation with competent functioning and a strengthened self. Resilience is also about being able to maintain normative developmental tasks that occur at various stages of life. It is the integrated adaptation of physical, mental, and spiritual aspects to circumstances, and a coherent sense of self that is able to maintain normative developmental tasks. Resilience is not only about overcoming a deeply stressful situation, but also about coming out of such a situation with competent functioning. Resilient individuals are able to rebound from adversity as strengthened and more competent individuals.
